Rue La La Builds Boutique Experiences By Device, Channel

Now with 14 million members and more than 50% of traffic and sales coming from mobile, Rue La La is finding more ways to understand customer acquisition paths, said the brand’s senior digital marketing manager, Feng Chang.

“How you access us – device and source such as search, social or display – will help us understand how loyal you are and how valuable you will be as a customer,” said Chang. “We’re also looking at context, such as what time of day you access the brand, to predict behaviors over time.”

When Rue La La first launched in 2008, it focused more on products, prices and daily deals, but now its main focus is curating experiences for different channels (in-app mobile purchases are designed with brevity and speed to checkout in mind, while the online and tablet sites are more immersive).

Rue La La first deployed tag-management solution Signal Fuse in 2014 to sync first-party CRM data to its ad tech stack, specifically for retargeting dormant customers with display ads, and to tweak its own site experience.

Chang noted the importance of segmenting the brand’s CRM database, since it was able to identify lapsed users and cut down on impressions served to streamline frequency of messaging. As a result, it improved conversions by 10%.

Typically, brands would begin wrangling the tags on their sites first and then move out to mobile, but Joe Stanhope, Signal’s SVP of marketing, said he’s increasingly seeing companies start with the mobile piece first and then sync online and offline channel data.

One of the primary reasons is more retail brands are passing the 50% mark in mobile traffic, even if the mobile commerce part hasn’t quite caught up yet.

Rue La La, by contrast, has for years prioritized its in-app experience, with half of its conversions coming from authenticated mobile members.

Rue La La uses Signal to provide data to personalize landing pages for desktop and the mobile web. The experience will vary, for instance, depending on if a shopper visits to learn more about Rue La La or to capitalize on a deal.

“Layers of information are really important to us, and so is granularity in targeting,” said Chang, adding logged-in or “credentialed” users ultimately improve the experience for all members. “Understanding your intent … [helps us factor] that into average cost for acquisition and potential lifetime value, and how long it will take you to become a purchaser.”

Chang said Facebook performs solidly for Rue La La, but the platform can be tricky for some retail advertisers to master since they need to ensure they’re benchmarking against the right KPIs to reach their desired outcomes.

“It’s important to understand, ‘Are you trying to drive engagement, revenue or new member acquisition?” she noted. “Knowing your ROI targets and having very specific goals in mind are very important.”